


The Den

by ChillyJackal



Series: Zootopia Oddities AU [2]
Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Anthro, Body Horror, Coati, Gen, Horror, Urban Exploration, lovecraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 07:07:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8614402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChillyJackal/pseuds/ChillyJackal
Summary: A coati investigates rumors of something strange in an abandoned apartment complex, what she finds is less than pleasant.





	

It started out as a dare, nothing big, just a chance to prove myself to my friends that I was more courageous than I looked.

My name is Mel, I'm a 20 year old Coati from the Rainforest District, and I've done something really stupid. I let my pride and need to impress my friends ruin my life and potentially threaten the lives of mammals I care about. I'll attempt to start at the beginning, the start of a nightmare that hasn't ended since my return from the complex.

It was another dry, hot and fairly windy day in Sahara Square, as it usually was. My friends and I had come to check out the rumors. Rumors spreading about an apartment complex, long abandoned and left to the mercy of the elements. Rumors abound about how the crews sent to demolish the building vanished without a trace, or were sent running out screaming about something watching them in the dark halls.

"Mel, you sure about this? This seems really stupid."

My friend grabbed my shoulder and squeezed tight, clearly anxious about what I was about to do. I moved his hand aside and assured him I would be fine, there's no such thing as ghosts or ghouls. Those things were as real as talking snakes and pictures that could break your mind. Just silly scary stories meant to stop people from being adventurous or trying anything new. It was like that Gazelle song said: "Try everything."

"I'm going to go in there for the night, just you wait. Any ghosts in there are gonna get their tails kicked."

I was pretty confident in myself at the time. I grew up in a fairly rough part of town and things like ghosts and monsters were nothing to me. I stepped up to the front door of the complex and removed the hunk of wood holding the door shut, waving to my friends before walking in and shutting the door behind me.

The lobby was quiet, not too quiet, but just quiet enough. I could hear the wind and sand beating against the windows and walls of the complex, as well as the creaks and groans of the building as it managed to hold itself together long after mammals stopped working on it. I wasted no time, taking out my flashlight and my phone and walking up to the reception desk.

"Hello? Anyone hanging out here?"

I felt silly calling out, I knew no one had been here for lord knows how long, but I suppose at the time I was curious to see if maybe some homeless mammal wandered in before we arrived. My call was answered with more creaks and groans from the building itself, much to my relief. I wiped some dust off the desk and tried to hold back a sneeze when some of it flew up into my face, failing rather miserably and letting out a rather loud one in the process. 

Click. Click. Click.

I froze in place, staring down at where I wiped the dust and listening very carefully.

Click. Click. Click.

I knew it, there was a very distinct sound coming from one of the hallways nearby. It took me a second to figure out what it was, but once I did my heart started racing. It was the sound of an old door opening and clicking shut, I wasted no time turning on my phone's camera and making my way to the hall where I heard the sound. I made sure to peek my phone through the small window of the door first, to see if I could catch anyone or anything sneaking down the hall from a safer position. 

My screen showed an empty hallway, with no sign of anything, mammal or spirit. I relaxed a bit and slowly pushed the old door open, entering the hallway. The dust on the carpeted floor confirmed that no one had been in this hallway for a very long time. I was honestly a bit disappointed, for a second I was excited that perhaps I'd caught something of interest right away. I wiped the dust from my nose and slowly wandered down the hall, checking each door to see if they had opened, only to find every one of them locked. 

I found this odd, I was sure that I heard a door open and shut in the lobby. I had very good hearing, you needed it if you grew up where I did, so I was sure that I wasn't mistaken in my assumption that what I heard was indeed accurate. I was in the middle of pondering this, when my paw happened across something that shook me from my thoughts.

One of the door handles was clean. I looked down at my paw. The entire time, after every handle I tested I was cleaning my paw on my pantlegs but when I checked this time my paw was still clean. I stared down at the handle and slowly pushed down on it.

Click. Click. Click.

The door opened with ease. I looked into the darkness of the room very nervously and took out my phone again, paw shivering as I held up the device and turned on the flashlight.

Nothing. The room was completely empty. I went inside and examined it very closely. All of the furniture was gone, the wallpaper was gone, everything was just gone. This made sense of course as the place was abandoned. This had me wondering however, why was this one room unlocked, and why was the handle so clean? I tapped my foot on the floor in deep thought once again, looking at the time on my phone and sighing. It was still fairly early and I was already getting nervous. 

I left the room and shut the door behind me, hearing it click again I decided to test something. I went to open the door one last time to see if maybe it was loose in some way, that perhaps the wind outside caused the building to expand in some way and open the door.

Click.

My mouth went dry for a moment. It was locked. The door I had literally just opened with no problem was suddenly locked again. I heard a noise behind me.

Click click click click click click.

I spun around with the flashlight on and gasped. Every other door in the hall had been opened at once. I was about to say something, more than likely some obscenity, when they all slammed shut at once too, dust showering the hallway and leaving me screaming, falling flat on my rear and covering my head until the dust cleared, literally. 

My mind was racing with thoughts, a million thoughts and ideas at once as I panicked and struggled to keep myself together. 

"Okay, okay, it's okay calm down it was just the doors."

"What the actual hell was that? They were all locked before what the hell happened?"

"It's a ghost isn't it, oh god it's a ghost."

I shivered and held myself tight for a few minutes, calming myself down and trying to think logically. I quickly rationalized that perhaps, perhaps, the electronic locks on the doors had shorted at once because of the wind, the same effect that made the door open had caused the other doors to malfunction at the same time.

I laughed a bit and slowly stood back up. I was being silly, there was no such thing as ghosts, there was such a thing as poor construction and electrical work though. I dusted myself off again and decided to keep exploring. I refused to let a door malfunction scare me out of this old building, it'd be a humiliating blow to my ego and I couldn't have that happen.

I returned to the lobby and sat in one of the old chairs that had been left behind, more than likely because they had been bolted to the floor itself to deter would-be looters from taking them. I coughed again as dust flew up from the old cushion and took out a handkerchief to blow the offending particles from my nose. When I looked down at the handkerchief my blood ran cold, a black stain was left where I had just cleared my nostrils. I shot up from the chair and blinked, looking back down to find the handkerchief a little dusty and wet, but otherwise normal again.

I was confused now, but tried to once again rationalize this event away like I had done with the doors. I probably saw the dust at a bad angle, or my eyes were having trouble adjusting to the dusty stain in this darkness. That was something else that confused me, despite only being mid-evening, the apartment's interior, even with windows, was eerily dark and dreary. I figured it had more to do with poor design and placement of windows than anything and walked back to the front desk, spotting something behind it I had missed before.

A small trap door, barely visible in the dark. I moved my paw over the handle and gasped. Clean, the handle of the trap door was clean like the handle of the door from the hallway. I mustered up my courage and pulled the trap door open, a metal ladder leading down into what I assumed was the basement. I put my phone away and turned on my flashlight, shining it down into the darkness and spotting the cement floor at the bottom. I held onto the ladder tightly and climbed down, the cold floor sending a chill through my feet and into my legs. I was never a fan of polished cement. 

The ladder had brought me down into another hallway, but this one was quite a bit different than the ones in the complex itself. The walls and floors were made of the same unpleasant stone material, with piping and wires exposed all over. It was typical affair for a basement really. The one thing that did stand out however, were the strange bits of structural damage on the floor and walls. Small, burn-like marks, making an odd path on the ground and onto the ceiling, mixing into the piping and wires of the hotel, past where I could keep track of them. 

Closer examination of the marks revealed that they were in fact some sort of punctures, like something hot and sharp was stabbed into the floor over and over again in a pattern. I took a photo with my phone and continued on my way. The hall itself was fairly long, with metal doors to different empty rooms on the sides. They were locked of course, and there were no windows to even peek into the rooms with. As I made it to the end of the hall, where a pair of double doors waited, I suddenly heard that familiar noise again.

Click click click BANG.

I turned around and shone my flashlight at the source of the noise, gasping when a tall dark figure emerged from one of the side rooms and stared at me, a horrible wheezing noise escaping his body as he pointed in my direction. The voice coming from the figure made my ears and head hurt, an awful, high, buzzing noise came from his vocal chords as he spoke, a noise that made me feel dizzy and ill.

"You're not supposed to be here. Very naughty. I'll be taking you to my den..."

With little warning, the figure charged. I screamed and ran through the double doors, shoving them closed behind me in hopes that they'd hit my pursuer as I fled. The room I had entered was some sort of large laundry room, with a nice collection of old machines that probably hadn't run since the building was emptied. With haste I ran into a pile of old dusty clothing and hid, keeping silent as the figured burst through the doors and wheezed loudly.

"...can't hide from me. Can't hide. Can't. I'll take you to my den."

The figure pulled something up from the corner and lit it, an old worn lantern. I stared at the thing as he was barely illuminated by the flame he carried. It was an old, ragged coyote of some sort, but something was wrong with him. His fur was gone, his eyes yellowed and sickly and his bones in strange positions on his body. I can't explain it properly, but they were all wrong, aside from his limbs his bones were just out of place, some of them looked as if they were trying to push out from his chest and back. 

"You'll be sorry when I find you. You'll be so sorry."

He rasped and walked past me. I thanked any gods I could remember at the time that his nose wasn't as good as the rest of his kin. Standing up from the laundry and looking at my phone I could see that it was now the middle of the night. I paused for a moment and checked again to be sure. As far as I knew, I had only been in this hotel for one, maybe two hours, but my clock told me that it was a lot more than that. I figured my phone wasn't working properly in the completely cement basement and took a better look at my surroundings. That's when I noticed it.

The laundry I had hidden in, the pile of old clothes left behind, they were work uniforms. My heart started beating fast as I looked at the other clothes in the room. Police uniforms, urban exploration gear, clothes from teenagers and children, clothes from different times and decades. I realized what had happened now, this coyote had been murdering people entering the apartments and keeping their possessions down here for some sick reason. I took photos of the laundry and looked at the doors the coyote had walked through. 

"KITCHEN."

I should have left there and then, should have just walked back through the hall behind me, up the ladder, and out the front doors. I should've went straight to the Zootopia Police Department with my photos and had them raid this awful place. But I didn't, once again my pride took hold of my sanity and pushed me forward. I figured that if there was something that would definitely get the ZPD here, if old laundry and strange burn marks weren't enough, it'd be the "Den" the coyote was rambling about. I walked through the kitchen doors and was greeted by a horrific foul odor, a stench that made my stomach quiver and my mind race with awful ideas as to what the stink was.

I covered my face with the handkerchief I used before and pushed forward, trying to ignore the awful slimy feeling on my feet, or the crunch of what I hoped was just debris as I kept going, the sound of something scuttling in the ceiling, I tried to ignore them all and reached the door at the very end.

The entrance before me should have been a freezer, but the door I was looking at was nothing like any freezer door I'd seen. It was a strange warped wood, with swirling patterns and cuts all over, with an equally warped handle. Above the door were painted words, painted black and easily standing out against the dirty white wall of the kitchen. 

"THE DEN."

I couldn't move. For some reason this door sent feelings through me that I couldn't quite understand, awful, anxious feelings and a dread that put even my stubborn pride in it's place momentarily. I suddenly heard the passage to the kitchen open and realized I had no choice, I opened the door to The Den and slipped in, closing it silently behind me and walking forward, stopping as I hit something soft and wet.

I tried to turn on my flashlight but it refused to work, the bulb shattering the instant I tried. I tried my phone next, but jumped when the screen cracked the second light left it. I was forced to feel my way around the room, backing up into the door and slowly sitting down on the soft, squishy ground in a position that'd keep me safe if the coyote happened to open the door to look for me. It was a foolish, childish attempt at hiding but I had no other choice. 

Then I heard it. The noise.

That awful, clicking, crawling noise.

The sound of something moving across the fleshy ground and the smell of burning meat.

My eyes tried to adjust to the darkness, but what they could make out nearly made me vomit. I could see the room itself undulating and moving, and something large, covered in needle-like legs coming towards me. I stood completely still and slowed my breathing, closed my eyes as the thing seemed to crawl and circle around me. I stayed silent as the stench of burning meat surrounded me and the clicking of its pincers reached my ears. 

I stood still the entire time as its legs moved onto my body, as it crawled and skittered up my back and around my waist, the awful, sick burning sensation covering me and going right into my soul. I bit my lip hard and didn't scream, didn't cry out. If I cried out, I knew this thing would realize I wasn't part of the room and would more than likely kill me. The second I felt it skitter off my now burning flesh and move to the other side of the room, I very slowly moved to the other side of the door, just as it opened and the coyote poked his sickly head in.

I took the chance and shoved past him, pushing him into the room and screaming as I ran through the kitchen, ignoring the bones and smell as I got to the doors and made it into the laundry room. I could hear him screaming after me as I ran.

"No, you can't do this! I need to feed it! It needs to feed! Stupid girl, what have you done!?"

I could hear a buzzing howl of agony from the coyote as I made it to the ladder and climbed faster than I had ever climbed before, cursing when I managed to hit my head on the trap door. I heard something else now as I fiddled with the little hatch, the sparking skittering noise of the thing from The Den. I was in full panic mode now. I pushed and shoved and slammed the damned thing until I managed to push it open again, leaping out from the basement and slamming it shut.

I ran like a madwoman, leaping over the desk as well and pushing out the front doors of the apartments, panting and taking desperate breaths of air as I kept running, slipping on some sand and landing in a dune. I just sat there in the sand as I tried to collect myself, slowly turning myself over, spitting up sand and looking at the old apartments in a strange moment of peace. The sun was rising now, it was morning. Even if it felt so short, I had indeed been in that place the entire night. 

The apartments collapsed the day after I left, there was an unexpected sandstorm that finally pushed the old building over the edge and destroyed it. Any evidence of anything that happened there was buried under the sands. My phone and flashlight melted from the inside out according to my friend. 

I took some time to look back at what happened, and I realized that the doors in the apartment weren't electronic, there was no power in that place the entire time. The clicking noise was never the doors. Whatever that thing was it had been following me the entire time I was there, waiting for me to wander into the path of the coyote who was feeding it. At least, that is the conclusion I've come to.

I'm going to the doctor's today. The wounds from where the thing touched me are oozing and sore long after I got them. I can't get the sound of the skittering or the smell of the burning flesh out of my mind. If you're reading this don't be stupid like I was. Some adventures aren't worth it. Some things don't need to be explained.

Melody Friar was admitted to the Zootopia General Hospital with serious wounds and infections caused by an unknown source, though doctors believe she may have inflicted the wounds upon herself during her visit to the abandoned Sahara Springs Apartment Complex in an attempt to impress her friends. She is currently undergoing serious psychiatric treatment and recovery after her apparent mental break during her night in the building.


End file.
